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Rolando Trejos Saucedo Post 1

• 11 November 2019, 9:55 PM

Approach some concerns you have or that you heard from other researchers about making data open or FAIR.

Some concerns I have or that I have heard from other researchers about making data open or FAIR are the following:


1. Some journals are very explicit with the kind of open data repositories or data license:
R. 

Sometimes it’s as easy as just finding out who does own the data. Sometimes nobody knows who owns the data. This often seems to occur when someone has moved into a post and isn’t aware that they are now the data owner. Going up the management chain can help. If you can find someone who has managed over the area the dataset belongs to they can either assign an owner or give permission. Get someone very senior to appoint someone who can make decisions about apparently “orphaned” data.


2. Open data makes the whole process more costly:

R.

It is important to plan data management early in the research data lifecycle. Data management ideally becomes an integral part of your research practice, reduces time and financial costs and greatly enhancing the quality of the data for your use too 


3. There is not enough recognition for open data as it is for becoming the only person with the information (expert reputation):
R.

(Original Response) The more you open your data up the more recognition and opportunities to collaborate you can achieve. By yourself, you can be able to produce 2-6 papers a year using your data, but with an international research group, you can elaborate and participate in more papers and learn about different approaches and perspectives useful for your future research works.

4. Data collection is a tedious process and I will not be able to use the data in every way I intended because other people will be involved using my data (they will do discoveries I want to do myself):
R: 

I’ve heard this about datasets produced in crystallography

One option is to have an automatic or optional embargo; require people to archive their data at the time of creation but it becomes public after X months. You could even give the option to renew the embargo so only things that are no longer cared about become published, but nothing is lost and eventually, everything can become open.